The invention relates to an apparatus, system and method to implement multiple virtual route forwarding virtual networks for any combination of voice, video or data services.
A network may include one or more routers to facilitate transmission of packets. Routers may be used to transmit, or route, a packet through intermediate networks to a destination network. Routing may be performed in the same network. In conventional networks, data packets may be identified according to an ingress interface of a router that they arrive on. The physical, ingress interface determines a virtual network identification of the data packet. The physical and virtual interfaces to a router are assigned to different virtual networks and therefore reside in their individual virtual routing tables. The router then associates a routing path or destination based on the virtual network the packet belongs to and makes a selection of an associated routing table to route the packet to its destination. Selection of the routing table according to its virtual network identification is referred to as Virtual Route Forwarding (VRF).
In conventional systems, data is originated by endpoints like computers or application servers. The router routes this data traffic based on a routing table identified by the ingress interface. In some cases devices such as phones, fax machines, and analog and digital (non-IP) interfaces to a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) or a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) are connected to the router, in which case the Internet Protocol (IP) packet originates within the router. In other cases, a data packet that arrives at the router may be depacketized and then repacketized, such that the data packet leaving the router appears to have originated within the router. The router relies on a global routing table to route different types of data traffic associated with different services. The router is unable to provide VRF selection ability for data that originates within the router.
The invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.